BAKER PERKINS IN THE BAKERY INDUSTRY

INDEX

(PLEASE NOTE: This history is still in the drafting stage and there are many incomplete areas - some with comments and "aide-memoirs" which will be removed later. Many illustrations remain to be added)

A SHORT HISTORY OF BREAD MAKING

In around 8000 BC, grain was being crushed by hand with pestle and mortar and a simple grinding stone (quern) was developed in Egypt. All bread was unleavened, with no raising agents and made from a variety of grains, similar to today’s Indian chapattis and Mexican tortillas. Between 5000 and 3700 BC. grain production was developed along the fertile banks of the Nile and grain became a staple food, spreading to the Balkans and throughout Europe,

Around this time, tougher wheat varieties were developed with the baking of bread becoming a skill along with brewing beer. In Egypt’s warm climate wild yeasts were attracted to multi-grain flour mixtures and bakers experimented with leavened doughs. The Egyptians invented the closed oven and bread assumed great significance, being used instead of money - the workers who built the pyramids were paid in bread.

Grain cultivation began along the Indus valley, circa 2300 BC and by 1050 BC, the south of England had become a centre of agriculture with barley and oats being grown freely; By 1000 BC, risen, yeasted bread had become popular in Rome and by 500 BC a circular quern was developed - a circular stone wheel turned on another which was fixed - the basis of all milling until the industrial revolution in the 19th century and still the way stoneground flour is produced today.

Circa 150 BC, rich Romans were insisting on the more exclusive and expensive white bread - a preference that persists in Europe and English speaking countries to this day. A Roman invented the first mechanical dough-mixer, powered by horses and donkeys. With the Roman invasion of Britain in 55BC, the Romans’ more sophisticated bread-making techniques replaced wheat crushed by hand and baked over open fires. When, some 500 years later, the Saxons and Danes settled in Britain, they introduced rye - which thrived in their cold northern climate - and dark rye bread became a staple, lasting into the Middle Ages.

Baking technology changed little between Roman times and 1800. Mixing was carried out by hand in wooden bins - a tedious and exhausting task. The manufacture of yeast had become a separate trade, no longer being obtained from the brewer, and the fermentation process was very lengthy - the 'first proof' for the 'sponge' being for twelve hours, with a further hour and a half for the 'second proof' after more flour and salt had been added to the fermented 'sponge'. The dough pieces were inserted into the beehive shaped oven with a wooden peel. The oven would have been pre-heated by building a fire inside it, the ashes being raked out when the oven was evenly hot. Inevitably, cinders stuck to the bottom of the loaf and these, combined with the millstone grit inside the bread, had a rather deleterious effect on the consumer's teeth.

By 1830, the beehive oven had been superseded by the side-flue oven - a brick-built arched structure with a flat tiled floor. The flue from a furnace at the side of the oven fed the oven, the hot air traversing through the oven chamber before passing into a vertical funnel built over the oven mouth.

Mechanical dough mixing had been experimented with towards the middle of the eighteenth century but with little success. The first British dough mixer, driven by a belt and pulleys by a steam engine outside the bakery, was patented in 1858. It was not until Paul Pfleiderer's introduction of the two-bladed "Universal" mixer in 1879, (see History of Werner & Pfleiderer (London) Ltd and The European Limited Partnership), that an efficient dough mixer was available to the baker.

THE BEGINNINGS OF BAKER PERKINS’ INVOLVEMENT IN THE BAKERY BUSINESS

See also:
Origins of the Founders.
History of A.M. Perkins and Son Ltd
History of Joseph Baker’s Ltd, Brantford
History of Joseph Baker & Sons Ltd

The involvement of Baker Perkins in the Baking industry can be traced back to two significant events. The first took place in 1851 when the son of Jacob Perkins – Angier March Perkins – began to construct a baking oven. The reason behind this venture was a simple geographical one. A new bakery opened up next door to his premises in Francis Street, to the north of Regent Square, and the owner asked Angier, as an engineer, to install the necessary equipment. Angier expended nearly £700 in labour and materials, studied the problems of oven building, adapted some of his father’s ideas and took out a patent for a wrought-iron tubular system for circulating hot water in ovens. (See also History of A.M. Perkins & Son Ltd)

Augustus Muir, in his book “The History of Baker Perkins”, points out that – “Over the long centuries, since mankind first began to bake bread in ovens, their basic design has changed very slowly. Bread baking had been largely domestic; and bakers’ premises, where one could buy a loaf made from dough other than the customer’s own, came surprisingly late on the scene. In the cities of Glasgow and Manchester, early last century, there was hardly a baker’s shop to be found. The old brick oven, which baked the countryman’s loaves, was heated by burning faggots inside it; the housewife then raked out the embers and ‘scuffled’ round a bundle of wet cloths on a pole before she pushed in her unbaked bread and clanged the metal door shut – glad, one may be sure, that the eye-smarting task was over. In the advances from this rustic simplicity, there seems to have been no satisfactory way of controlling the oven’s temperature until the hot water method was devised”.

Despite some difficulty in finding other customers, Angier Perkins decided to go ahead with this line of business and it paid its way without bringing in much profit. Most of the ovens were bought for baking bread for the army at home and overseas, more than seventy per cent of sales being to the military authorities. In these early days of oven manufacture, Perkins helped to feed more soldiers than civilians.

The second seminal event was the patenting by Joseph Baker in Canada in 1870, of a small combined flour scoop and sifter for use by housewives. The success of this invention led to Joseph travelling to England in 1876 to seek new markets for his product. (See also History of Joseph Baker & Sons Ltd)

From these two unrelated events developed the business that a century and a half later still produces equipment for the world’s bakeries from its premises in Paston, Peterborough, England and Goldsboro, North Carolina, USA.

THE PERKINS FAMILY AND BREAD MACHINERY

Let us stay with the Perkins side of the story for a while.

Angier’s son, Loftus Perkins, had inherited the family’s engineering ability and, in 1865, crowned his father’s achievement by taking out a patent for what he called the stopped-end steam tube. This resolved many of the oven heating problems, providing a steadier heat then was possible with wrought-iron tubes.

In Loftus’s patent, each tube contained a fixed amount of distilled water and both ends were hermetically sealed. Two rows of tubes, independent from each other, traversed the whole length of the oven, one row above the loaves, the other below the bread plate. All protruded slightly downwards form the baking chamber into the furnace. Each tube was, in effect, an individual boiler, its upper part filled with high-pressure steam. These ovens, with their steady heat that could bake batch after batch of loaves, cakes and pastry, were sold to some of the most important bakeries in the country. Stopped-end steam tube ovens were developed to become, in later years, the mainstay of Baker Perkins.

Stopped-end tubes were still being produced at Westwood Works nearly one hundred years later. Gordon Hennis recalls testing tubes for peel ovens in the ‘new’ Experimental Department in the 1950s. (See The Experimental Department). The tubes were taken to the air-raid shelter near to the Pattern Shop, (See Westwood Works in WW2 – Air Raid Shelters), thermocouples were placed along the length and one end placed in a gas burner before vacating the area very quickly. Yes, the tubes, on occasion, did blow up!

Perkins Ovens

Loftus Perkins went on, in 1874, to design a horse-drawn steam oven to feed troops on the march. Fifty-six of these ovens, known to the British Tommy as the ‘Polly Perkins’ had been supplied to the British Army, others being purchased by the Prussian and Spanish governments. They served in the Ashanti Wars, the Sudan campaign and the Boer War.

The late 1870s saw a concerted effort to increase oven sales with letters to potential customers all over the world, extolling the virtues of the design – "freedom from sulphur, gas and dirt of any kind; continuous baking and uniformity in the loaves; adaptability of the ovens for high-class confectionery since the heat could be so easily regulated; etc.".

Paul Pfleiderer and Werner, Pfleiderer & Perkins

See also:
History of Werner & Pfleiderer (London) Ltd
History of Werner, Pfleiderer & Perkins Ltd

The Perkins family were prolific inventors (see also Early Inventions) but, by the time of Loftus Perkins’ death in 1891, the control of the business had slipped from Perkins’ hands and it fell to Paul Pfleiderer, a naturalised German who had come to London to sell ‘engineering specialities’ to move the bakery machinery business forward. (See also Before Westwood).

Paul Pfleiderer sold the equipment produced in Cannstatt, Germany by Werner & Pfleiderer with selling rights within the British Empire for “kneading, mixing, masticating, sifting, straining, stirring, crushing and baking, also of machine tools, troughs, ovens, appliances for baking, confectionery and the chemical trades”. One of the products sold was the Wieghorst oven, imported from Hamburg, and advertised as being a great improvement on the Perkins ovens. He also took out an English patent for the ‘Universal’ Mixer, said to be “ a very successful imitation of the highly dexterous hands of a clever and skilled man”. This machine was, in fact, invented by a German named Freyburger, who sold the” world rights for all time” to Paul Pfleiderer for 900 marks (about £45).

WP&P “Universal” Mixer

Pfleiderer’s London business did not prove a great success and he approached the Perkins directors with the intention of negotiating a union between the two companies. Werner, Pfleiderer & Perkins Ltd was registered on 2nd June 1893 and Paul Pfleiderer soon became the dominating element in its management. He took out a new patent for an ‘improved’ stopped-end tube boiler, superseding Loftus Perkins’ stopped-end tube design, as a result of which, after a bitter dispute, the two sons of Loftus Perkins, Loftus Patton Perkins and Ludlow Perkins, severed their connections with the company.

Pfleiderer, a man of great charm and persuasive ability, did much to keep the products of the company in the public eye at a time when there was much talk of the unsavoury places where bread was made and the unhygienic methods used. He attended every trade show (see also Trade Exhibitions) and, for the Bakers’ and Confectioners’ Exhibition at the Royal Agricultural Hall, Islington in 1897, he agreed to supply, gratis, a complete Werner, Pfleiderer & Perkins baking plant.

It is interesting to note the range of equipment in use before the end of the nineteenth century – on show were the ‘Universal’ and Single Blade Doughing machines, ‘Universal’ cake machines, Spiral Brush sifters, dough trucks, bread racks, water measuring and tempering vessels, dough brakes and dividers, hoists, a Perkins’ steam-pipe peel oven and a draw-plate oven. For confectionery, there was a sponge divider, cake mixer, sponge whisk, hot plate, peel cutter and ice freezer.

INSERT – As many contemporary photographs/drawings of relevant machinery as possible. Also describe the difference between the various sorts of ovens – peel, drawplate, etc. and describe how they are loaded/unloaded. Talk about the development of ovens up until this time

The Pointons and the Dough Divider

At about this time another very important character came on the scene. In 1896, Paul Pfleiderer (see History of Werner, Pfleiderer & Perkins Ltd) received a leaflet from a company in Wellington, Shropshire describing the merits of a new dough divider that had been developed by a father and son – the Pointons. A description by the son, John Pointon, of how the machine was developed can be found in The Pointons. It is no exaggeration to say that with this machine, which he followed by designing other innovative dough handling devices, John Pointon laid the foundations for the long-term success and prosperity of Baker Perkins. Indeed, if it were possible for John to visit the modern Baker Perkins factory in Paston, Peterborough, he would have no difficulty recognising the bread forming equipment made today, the basic principles of which John established in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. See Bread Making Machinery Development below for illustrations of Pointon machines.

Prior to Paul Pfleiderer’s death in 1903, there had been no moves to bring the Pointon firm into any closer association with Werner, Pfleiderer & Perkins Ltd, who had been sole selling agents for the Pointon machinery. F.C. Ihlee now considered that a union of the two firms would benefit both businesses. Both father and son welcomed the merger with Werner, Pfleiderer & Perkins enthusiastically.

It was a newcomer to the scene, F.C. Ihlee – an able engineer, shrewd businessman and a natural leader - who steered the business through the next series of traumatic events - the move from London to Peterborough in 1904 and the fierce local antagonism towards the company, which existed at the start of World War One (See History of Perkins Engineers).

Regent Street to Peterborough

(See also History of Werner, Pfleiderer & Perkins and Before Westwood)

When in 1903, Hermann Werner decided that the Regent Square works should discontinue the manufacture of ‘Universal’ kneading machines and the Perkins Domestic Oven in favour of imports of ‘Universals’ and other machines from Cannstatt, the German equipment represented more than half of the output of Regent Square and occupied the whole of the top floor of the building. With no suitable premises available in the vicinity, Ihlee was forced to seek a solution in an area where wages and general expenses were less and were there was room for expansion.

After a long search, he settled on a ten-acre plot close to the London to Scotland railway line on the west side of Peterborough. The deal with the Church Commissioners was settled on 22nd December 1903 and construction of the new Westwood Works was begun in 1904 – see www.westwoodworks.net.

THE BAKER FAMILY - FROM SMALL BEGINNINGS

See also:
Origins of the Founders
History of Joseph Baker & Sons Ltd.

We now return to developments by the Baker family.

The flour scoop/sifter was an undoubted success and the workshop in Trenton, Ontario grew into a busy little factory. The sifters were made in different sizes and with different attachments for handling other products – jellies, catsup, and homemade wines - and for washing dried currents and dried fruits. A prodigious order was received from a dealer in Newfoundland that, they calculated, represented enough devices to last Newfoundland for a hundred years!

In 1876, following the threat of a lawsuit for patent infringement by two Americans, Joseph Baker planned a trip to England with his son, Joseph Allen Baker, to test the market for his product in the ‘Old Country’. On his father’s return, Joseph Allen was left to attempt to sell the sifter and travelled to Scotland, where he not only took many orders but also met his future wife, Elizabeth Balmer Moscrip.

INSERT – Photographs of some of the characters

Early the following year, he cabled an order for 2,000 sifters and asked that his brother William be allowed to come over to help. An office was opened in Liverpool and, by the middle of the year, wrote home to suggest that he would be able to sell ‘at least 100,000 and clear upwards of £30,000 above manufacturing costs and expenses’.

After the marriage of Joseph Allen and Elizabeth, they settled in London where they were joined by Joseph Baker and his wife and their two younger sons, George and Philip. A modest factory was opened in Tabernacle Walk (see also Before Westwood) and began trading as Joseph Baker & Son. The factory employed only half a dozen workmen – the coppersmith and two tinsmiths being important craftsmen in those early days in the manufacture of food machinery, all iron surfaces having to be coated with tin to avoid being affected by salt or sugar.

Joseph Baker, now in his middle fifties, continued to evolve other machines, particularly for the *biscuit industry, that he showed at the 1881 exhibition in the Agricultural Hall, Islington. Also, in the 1880’s, the company was an agent for Perkins’ steam ovens and for some of the peel-cutters and mixing and kneading machines made by the Edinburgh firm of David Thomson, of which more later. Soon, George, Joseph’s third son, who had inherited his father’s engineering genius, began to add his own ideas. Successful experiments were made with powered large-scale sifting and mixing machinery and they found that England offered an almost unlimited field for such equipment. J. Allen Baker visited many bake houses and was horrified by what he witnessed: "Night baking with intolerably long hours, the workers sleeping in their kneading-troughs, the kneading done with bare feet, no proper ventilation or sanitary arrangements, cockroaches, mice and sometimes even rats in untold numbers". He saw these things as being as dangerous to the public as they were to the workers and resolved to improve conditions by introducing machinery into the confectionery and baking industry. (*NOTE: See History of Baker Perkins in the Biscuit Business)

In 1881, increased business volume forced a move to more spacious premises in City Road. The company began to sell an increasing range of products connected with the food industry, issuing detailed catalogues at frequent intervals. The thirty-fourth edition had appeared by 1886, was said to look like a small pulpit bible and weighed five pounds. Anything that the food producer or grocer might need was on offer – including shop and bakery fittings, restaurant tables, a hand cart or bread van and even a Lancashire boiler! These products had a value beyond the modest profit derived from their sale, helping to bring in potential customers to their young, growing business. It was not long before they outgrew even these premises and, in 1890, moved to a three-acre site in Hythe Road, Willesden. (See also Before Westwood).

The Bakers in the Export Market

The Bakers were much more export minded than the management of Werner, Pfleiderer & Perkins and saw North America as a key market for their products and made their local headquarters in Brantford, Ontario. At that time there was no intention of establishing a new factory in Ontario and all machinery for sale in North America was imported from England. Every opportunity was made to exhibit equipment at exhibitions at both home and overseas and at the 1889 International Exhibition in Paris, they had their own Boulangerie Anglaise, described as ‘the most complete exhibit of modern bread, cake and biscuit making machinery, and continuous baking ovens, in the world’.

Developing the Australian Market

Following the successful exhibition of bakery machinery in Melbourne, Australia in 1889, the Bakers opened an office there. (For a history of this development, see History of Baker Perkins in Australasia). A variety of equipment was exported from Willesden ranging from chocolate-making machinery and travelling ovens to refrigerating equipment and gas plant for lighting and heating. Philip Baker and Walter Leitch ran the new office until Philip Baker returned to England on the death of his father. Walter Leitch was appointed manager and went on to become one of the outstanding citizens of Melbourne. The Bakers exhibited in New Zealand for the first time in 1890.

In contrast, the Perkins business had never been much interested in exporting but F.C. Ihlee had seen the possibilities of Australia as a market before World War One and in 1912 sent W.H. Lawrence to be a permanent representative in Sydney. He set up office next to the boardroom of the Master Bakers' Association and soon local bakers were calling in on him. The outbreak of war, after only two years of trading, cut off practically all of his supplies and, with the company name evoking similar hostile reaction in Australia as in England, F.C. Ihlee suggested that Lawrence should return home. However, Lawrence remained convinced of the opportunities and. In 1916, in spite of the war, he opened a second office in Melbourne – which he considered a more central situation.

In later years, the Australian business played its part as one of the three key resources of bakery equipment design and manufacture in the Baker Perkins Group’s strategy to serve the world’s bakery industry - the other two being Baker Perkins Ltd, Peterborough, England and Baker Perkins Inc. Saginaw, USA.

BREAD MAKING MACHINERY DEVELOPMENT

It is worth breaking into the story of how the two founding families of the Baker Perkins group developed in the bakery machinery business, to look at how the mechanisation of the bread making process evolved at around the beginning of the twentieth century.

Bread Dough Mixing and Forming Equipment

Mention is made above of the major contribution that John Pointon and his father made to the development of bread dough dividing and moulding technology. While the Pointons were working on their new ideas, Joseph Baker & Sons were putting together their ‘Patent “New Process” Bread Making System’.

Dough mixing machines were adaptations of the “Universal” mixer principle originally introduced into the UK by Paul Pfleiderer in 1873. Usually powered by belts from overhead line-shafts, in 1901 Joseph Baker & Sons was offering them coupled direct to an electric motor.

WP&P - “Universal” Dough Mixer
J. Baker & Sons Direct-Coupled Dough Mixer

Comparison of the equipment available from Werner, Pfleiderer & Perkins with that from Joseph Baker &Sons at the time serves to illustrate the importance of John Pointon’s break through with his dough divider. Prior to the introduction of the “Century” Dough Dividing and Weighing Machine, Joseph Baker had been marketing the simple hand-operated dough dividing machines illustrated below.

Hand-operated Dough Dividing Machine 1902 - Pointon Dough Dividers.

Joseph Baker’s 1901 sales catalogue shows the rest of his “New Process” bread making system:

Flour handling/Mixing/Dough tub system
“Century” Dough Moulding Machine sold by J. Baker & Sons
"Horizontal” dough-moulding machine

By 1903, the Pointons had designed a machine to mould dough for bread making that put the centre in a state of compression and the outer surface in tension. The development of a device to mechanise the rest period required by the dough to recover and rise following its battering by the kneading and moulding machines took much longer and resulted in a swinging tray prover. This formed the link between the ‘Universal’ mixer and kneader and the steam oven.

1919: Pointon Bread Plant
1919: Pointon Dough Divider
1919: Pointon Bread Moulding Machine

The 1915 issue of Joseph Baker’s sales catalogue illustrates that they too had developed their range of dough handling machinery – in co-operation with John Callow. (See reference to patent infringement in WERNER, PFLEIDERER & PERKINS IN PETERBOROUGH below).

“Baker-Callow” Dough Dividing machine
“Baker-Callow” Dough Moulding Machine

With the merger of the two companies in 1919, both ranges of dough forming equipment were being offered in Joseph Baker Sons and Perkins Ltd’s catalogue.

Bread Oven Technology

Claude Dumbleton joined Joseph Baker & Sons Ltd at Willesden in 1919, retiring from Baker Perkins as Technical Director in 1956. His treatise – “The Oven Game” is the definitive record of oven development at Baker Perkins and much of what follows is drawn from his work.

In all the ideas on bread oven design the emphasis had been on what was called “solid heat”, which was in effect radiated heat as opposed to convected heat, and led to brick oven construction. Prior to WW1, and for a number of years later, the line of thought was broadly as follows:

Hot Air Peel and Vienna Ovens

(The Peel oven was so called because the baker used a long-handled wooden or metal shovel-shaped device, or ‘peel’ to load and unload the bread in the oven).

1919 Steampipe Peel Oven

It had been thought that Perkins dominated the bread oven sphere but this was not the case. J. Baker & Sons owned the patent rights (approx. 1890) of the Bailey-Baker Hot Air System as applied to Peel and Vienna Ovens - and did a substantial business in them. In principle, these ovens heated a separate hot air duct system from a furnace chamber, thus eliminating the products of combustion from the baking chamber. Solid fuel was used - coal or coke. In the side flue oven, which held sway for many years, the fire (coal or wood) passed the products of combustion directly into the baking chamber. Despite this apparent advantage, the steam tube ovens finally won the competitive struggle as the Bailey- Baker ovens were very complicated, and therefore expensive to build. At the same time as J. Baker & Sons was selling the Bailey-Baker oven (pre-WW1), attempts were made to enter the steam tube oven market, without much success, although they did supply a number of ovens, both peel and drawplate.

Immediately following WW1, the amalgamation between J. Baker & Sons and Perkins Engineers, virtually spelled the end of J. Baker & Sons’ bread oven development. However, a last venture was made with Perkins Engineers to design and construct an all metal 75ft x 9ft direct gas fired travelling plate bread oven of which about a dozen were built. Around 1918 to 1920, Perkins Engineers installed one or two brick-built plate ovens but the design was not pursued.

Perkins’ main oven heating effort was with steam tubes and it had a very substantial business. They had for years collaborated on the design with their pre-war partners Werner & Pfleiderer of Germany, who also had a substantial business in steam tube oven installations.

The Steam-Tube Peel Oven started as a competitor to the original side flue, solid fuel oven. Originally a single deck design, a two-deck version was soon introduced. The tubes were straight, the bottom row acting as fire bars, there being three rows of tubes for two-deck ovens. These ovens, which were mainly of brick construction, were also built as portable ovens with all-metal cases.

At a later date, it was felt that more flexibility was required between the upper and lower deck and W. H. Beanes had the idea of bending the tubes so that they were more or less bunched in the furnace. In doing so, he was able to separate the furnaces for top and bottom decks and so achieve a considerable measure of separate chamber control. This concentration of tubes and separate furnaces was one of the most important advances in steam tube oven design. Up to this time, steam tube ovens were solid fuel fired. Use could now be made of oil and gas as fuel relatively easily and many ovens of this type were sold.

Drawplate Ovens

(The Drawplate oven, as the name suggests, had a large steel plate as a baking hearth that could be withdrawn from the oven on wheels for loading and unloading).

1892 Drawplate Oven
1919 Steampipe Drawplate Oven

Development of this type of oven had begun by Werner & Pfleiderer, Germany before WW1. It was generally steam tube heated, solid fuel, gas or oil fired and built of brick in various sizes. The Drawplate had many advantages over the Peel Oven – it was more easily loaded and was more flexible in the products that it could bake. Popular in the UK, to a considerable extent in Germany and a little in France, it found some favour in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

Again, prior to WW1, David Thomson Ltd. of Edinburgh had developed a Drawplate oven with what was known as a circulating loop steam tube, as opposed to the stopped-end Perkins tube. The object of the loop tube was to even out the temperatures from back to front of the oven and obtain more even baking of products requiring long baking times or low temperatures, such as Scotch and Irish batch bread. Baker Perkins acquired David Thomson Ltd in 1922, the personnel and assets were absorbed into the company and David Thomson Ltd was liquidated in 1932.

The Development of the Travelling Bread Oven

(The travelling oven – not to be confused with the ‘portable’ oven produced in great quantities by Perkins Engineers and, later Baker Perkins, in both world wars for feeding the troops in the field – was, essentially a conveyor belt passing through a long, heated tunnel. The conveyor could be steel plates on chains, grids on chains or a steel or wire mesh band).

Gas-heated Travelling Plate Oven
Drive end of the Travelling Plate Bread Oven (Health and Safety at Work act?)
Brick-built Travelling Plate Oven

The Bakers had never specialised in bread ovens to the same extent as their smaller rivals, Werner, Pfleiderer & Perkins but they were pioneers in one important respect. Travelling ovens had been used for baking biscuits for some time but it was the Bakers of Willesden who proved that travelling ovens could also be used for baking bread. The first travelling plate oven for baking bread was sold to Harrison Brothers of Montreal in 1908 and visitors from all over the USA went to see it in operation. Fed by hand, the oven. At only fifty feet long small by modern day standards, delivered bread onto a conveyor from which it was stacked on cooling racks by hand. It proved so successful that Harrisons installed another.

In 1912, the Ward Baking Company of Chicago ordered a travelling oven for bread, together with a pre-oven unit so that the whole plant could be automatic. Recognising this as one of the greatest challenges put to the staff at Willesden, George Baker and his son Ralph devoted all their energies to the project and went over to Chicago to supervise its installation. There were significant teething troubles and the two Bakers were at the Ward factory for many months. That they succeeded in their task – aided by the persuasive Joseph Allen Baker, is demonstrated by the fact that the Ward directors ordered two more plants before the original installation was in satisfactory working order. Claude Dumbleton, a pupil of George Baker and later a director of Baker Perkins, is on record as saying – “ Electrical and pneumatic techniques for synchronisation and transfers are the only advantages which modern counterparts have over George Baker’s original design”.

Bread Slicing and Wrapping Machinery

“The best thing since sliced bread”

The man that set the target to be met by other inventors was Otto Rohwedder, an American of German extraction living in Iowa and originally a jeweller, who began work in 1912 on a bread slicing machine. The machine worked well enough but after many setbacks, filed a patent on a machine that both sliced bread and wrapped it to keep the moisture in. His difficulties were not confined to mechanical matters however; it took another 15 years for his machine to become accepted by bakers.

Rohwedder’s machine was first exhibited at an American Trade Fair in 1928. In the same year, the Continental Bakery of New York introduced Wonder Bread – an unsliced loaf wrapped in waxed paper to conserve moisture. This gave the impetus for bakeries to adopt Rohwedder’s invention. Sliced bread appeared in Britain under the Wonder Bread label in 1930. By 1933 around 80% of bread sold in the US was pre-sliced and wrapped. Americans loved it and it is thought that the expression "the best thing since sliced bread" was coined at around this time. Rohwedder was not alone in developing a bread-wrapping machine. In September 1920, Joseph Baker Sons & Perkins had taken over the British business of Savy Jeanjean, Paris, (see History of Baker Perkins in the Packaging Business). It was through this trading agreement that Baker Perkins also became agents for the Sevigne bread-wrapping machines – a product of the National Bread Wrapping Company, USA.

Baker–Sevigne bread wrapping machine

In 1929, Baker Perkins Inc. bought a 60% share in the National Bread Wrapping Company of America and the Package Machinery Company of Springfield, Massachusetts held a minority (40%) share. At about the same time, Baker Perkins had suggested to the Package Machinery Company that it would be to their mutual advantage if Baker Perkins were appointed selling agents for Package machines in Britain. Thus, Forgrove, of which Baker Perkins had acquired around one-third of the equity, were also able to enter into a reciprocal trade agreement with Package.

The National Bread Wrapping Company's bread-wrapping machines were considered to be the best on the American market but, unfortunately soon afterwards, a competitor designed a machine that could wrap sliced bread the sales of which soon beat those of the National Bread Wrapping Co's machine. Despite this setback, the National Bread Wrapping Co. continued to develop new products and the designs for their 'National' wrapping machine were passed on to Forgrove in 1949.

In 1939, arrangements had been made between the Forgrove Machinery Co. Ltd and Baker Perkins for the design and production of a Bread Wrapping and slicing unit and one had been produced before the War. The Forgrove slicer was retained but the company’s wrapping machine was discarded in favour of the “National” machine.

With Forgrove Machinery Co. Ltd’s introduction of the BW5 bread wrapper in 1949 - a National Bread Wrapping Machine Company design, (see History of the National Bread Wrapping Co) - it quickly became an industry standard. By the time that it was superseded, thirty years later in 1979, over 2,300 machines had been sold worldwide and it was in use in over 40 countries wrapping hundreds of varieties of bread. Its successor, the Rose Forgrove RF300 could handle the same wide variety of bread at speeds up to 55 loaves a minute. Automatic feeding from a Rose Forgrove slicer was standard.

Forgrove BW5 bread wrapper
Rose Forgrove RF300 bread wrapper

1950 saw the reintroduction of slicing and wrapping loaves that was prohibited during World War II as an economy measure.

(Forgrove produced its 2,500th 'National' BW wrapping machine from its Seacroft factory in 1965. The machine, with its self-measuring paper feed, became an important product, more than a thousand being sold in nearly thirty countries, wrapping not only loaves of bread but also other food and non-food products).

New Zealand was the first country to request a bread slicing frame for a Forgrove reciprocating slicer to give two thicknesses of slice in one loaf, The object was to provide some thick slices for toast and the remainder of a thickness suitable for the thin sandwiches used in New Zealand. This also produced a sliced loaf that could not be produced an band slicers offered by competitors.

WERNER, PFLEIDERER & PERKINS IN PETERBOROUGH

By now, Werner, Pfleiderer & Perkins were well established in their new factory at Westwood Works, Peterborough (See also How it Started and Outside Views) and 1913 saw a letter from Werner, Pfleiderer & Perkins to the Baker directors at Willesden accusing them of infringing certain Pointon patents. This was not for the first time as Bakers were already paying a 5% royalty to the Pointons on a dough divider and a dough moulder that had been offered to the Bakers by their inventor, John Callow, and marketed under the name of Baker-Callow. (See Bread Dough Mixing and Forming Equipment above).

Although Willesden had led in the development of automatic bread plant, WP&P had recently caught up and both were in fierce competition, cutting prices until little or no profit was left. F.C. Ihlee saw this latest infringement row as an excuse to talk to the Baker Board about the possibility of some form of closer co-operation between the two companies and it was agreed that a third party should carry out a valuation of the assets of the two companies. The result was such that it was decided to put off further talks until ‘more favourable weather’.

THE IMPACT OF WORLD WAR ONE

See also: The History of Perkins Engineers

‘More favourable weather’ was not experienced for a number of years as World War 1 intervened. However, the conflict gave an un-expected opportunity for closer co-operation. Normal work was suspended at both Westwood and Willesden and both factories were turned over to war work. However, not many months after the outbreak of hostilities, the directors at Willesden (Bakers) had tried to persuade the War Office to undertake, on a big scale, the mechanical preparation of dough and baking of loaves to feed the troops on active service. E.H. Gilpin explained to War Office officials that the old field ovens used in every campaign for half a century and more were tying down men who ought to be fighting. But it seemed impossible to break down the good old military prejudice. When Gilpin got his foot in the door, it was not easily dislodged but it took a long time to find the right door. He had claimed that if large automatic bread-baking equipment were used, 20,000 men would be released for fighting. Gilpin was asked to set up a demonstration as soon as possible and, for speed, the Baker directors decided to invite Ihlee to come in: he jumped at the chance of collaboration.

The new plant, made partly at Willesden and partly at Peterborough, was ready in twelve weeks for the officials from Whitehall to inspect. A contract was drawn up between the War Office and Joseph Baker & Sons, and the Bakers entered into a sub-contract with Peterborough. The two firms divided the manufacture, Perkins being allotted the mixing machines, final moulders and draw-plate ovens, while the dividers, the first moulders and provers were turned out at Willesden. The complete unit was named the Baker Perkins Standard Army Bread Plant.

INSERT – photograph of the Baker Perkins Standard Army Bread Plant nameplate.

Installations were made in England and at the base bakeries at Rouen and Boulogne. Eventually, the whole of the British Army on the Western Front was dependent on these bakeries for bread. The Americans in France became interested and soon Baker and Perkins were erecting for them, at Dijon, baking plant that turned out a million rations of bread per day. Herbert Kirman thus found himself in charge of all of the military bread plant on the Western front. After recovering from his wounds, Major Joseph S. Baker was appointed Inspector of all military baking equipment.

This coming together of the two firms in their war effort could not have been more propitious. If any single step could be called the crucial one in the union of the two firms, it was the request from the Baker board that Ihlee would collaborate in the Army bread plant.

THE MERGER – THE BIRTH OF BAKER PERKINS

See also:
History of Joseph Baker Sons & Perkins Ltd
History of Perkins Engineers Ltd
History of Baker Perkins Ltd

In 1919, the two companies finally came together and reorganisation of both factories began. Willesden was to concentrate on machinery for biscuit and chocolate and sugar confectionery, Peterborough on machinery for the bakery and chemical industries.

The Acquisition of Saginaw

See also: The History of Saginaw

Just after the merger, an opportunity arose to purchase the Werner & Pfleiderer factory in Saginaw, Michigan. The full story of this can be found in The History of Saginaw. It had been clear fro some time that equipment designed in England did not necessarily meet the requirements of the Americans – within the USA, the varieties of bread were many and the equipment used on the Eastern seaboard would not have provided the types of bakery products demanded by consumers on the Pacific coast. The opportunity now arose for bakery equipment to be designed and manufactured specifically for the American market.

A Baker Perkins Automatic travelling bread oven of the 1920s with automatic final prover located above the oven. This is thought to be a Joseph Baker & Sons design built in Saginaw.

The Acquisition of David Thomson of Edinburgh

See also: The History of David Thomson of Edinburgh.

It has been mentioned previously that Joseph Baker & Sons acted as agents for some of the products of David Thomson of Edinburgh. This business, started in 1870, began with making machines for cutting up peel for cakes and confectionery but progressed to making dough mixers and dividers. It is credited with designing the first drawplate oven for Scotch bread. It took over William Cook & Sons, makers of circulating tube ovens with a basket furnace and coke-fired hotplates for baking cakes and bannocks. After WW1, the company ran into financial difficulties and was acquired by Joseph Baker Sons & Perkins, being absorbed into Westwood Works in 1922.

INSERT – Details of Scotch bread and other Scottish bakery products.

BETWEEN THE WARS

(For a history of the business environment within which these developments took place see History of Baker Perkins Ltd)

British Arkady

Augustus Muir in his "History of Baker Perkins" states – "Some experiments, carried out at Willesden by Hinman Baker, son of W. King Baker, resulted in the discovery of a combination of chemicals that enhanced the action of yeast in bread. To market this 'bread-improver', the British Arkady Company Ltd. was formed, and the firm retained a financial interest in it until the time came when the directors decided that its products were outside their traditional range, and they sold the holding to the Ward Baking Company of America".

Baker Perkins Annual Reports begin to mention British Arkady in 1923. and its shareholding was finally disposed of in 1953 for a sum "which exceeded the cost to the company by £113,338".

Dough Machinery development between The Wars

Dough Mixers

The Baker Perkins sales catalogue of the late 1920s/early 1930s featured a number of different types of dough mixing machines, each having a different parentage from within the group.

The “Universal” – originating from Paul Pfleiderer, still featured in various configurations and two machines from the David Thomson stable, said to be suitable for producing “Scotch” doughs were featured. A “Baker” tilting bowl, two-speed kneading machine was being offered for sponge doughs and the famous “Viennara” kneading machine first made its appearance at this time – in both self-discharging and removable-pan versions.

David Thomson Dough Kneading Machine
Self-discharging “Viennara” Dough Kneading Machine
Removable-Pan “Viennara” Dough Kneading Machine

One of the key developments of this period was the High Speed Dough Mixer designed by Baker Perkins Inc, Saginaw, which soon became the standard doughing machine throughout the USA and Canada. It had a tilting bowl – used in the upright position for charging with ingredients and during mixing and tilted, using a separate geared motor, for discharging the dough. The operator ‘inched’ the agitator when in the tilted position to throw the dough into a portable dough trough. To prevent overheating of the dough caused by the high speed of the agitator, cold air was introduced into the mixing bowl during mixing and the bowl was fitted with a brine jacket.

Saginaw “High-Speed” Dough Mixer
Dough Proving Room with Mono-rail Conveyors

The same catalogue indicated that Baker Perkins could offer a design and installation service for quite sophisticated dough proving rooms, with steel troughs of two-sack (280 lbs) capacity were transported suspended on a mono-rail system.

Dough Moulding

Spindle Hander-Moulder
The Spindle Moulder attached to a Long Loaf Shaper
Single Cylinder Dough Divider
Conical Final Moulder. Dough pieces from the first prover were moulded against stationary troughs – the action following closely that of moulding by hand, in which the middle of the piece is compressed while the outer skin is stretched

TO BE CONTINUED

Bread Oven development between the Wars

Combined Oven and Prover

The first major development in bread ovens between the Wars was the combined oven and prover in which swinging trays passed in a circuitous route through the final prover and the oven. This was essential for the baking of ‘tin’ bread that was being sold in increasing quantities in the south of England following enthusiastic consumption in Lancashire and Yorkshire. The new equipment captured the interest of all the major bakery companies when shown at the British Empire Exhibition of 1924. Visitors could follow the bread making process from the flour-blending machine through to the Baker-Sevigne wrapping machinery.

Two sizes of plant were fixed on – 7-sack and 12-sack capacity. Various tray sizes were used – up to 11ft, and from 7” to 12” wide. In about 1938, a 9-sack size plant was built, based on the theory that the same labour could handle 9 sacks as could handle 7 sacks. This proved to be correct and this was the reason for the later production of the 9-sack size of “Uniflow” oven. The ovens were brick-built, fuelled by gas, oil or coke and steam tube heated. The application of steam tubes to these ovens was considered at the time to be revolutionary and courageous.

INSERT – photographs/diagrams of the combined oven and prover (including the diagrams of the complete plant from the BEE 1924 brochure.

Swinging Tray Simplex Oven

The combined ovens described above had two drawbacks:

  • Lack of flexibility to make them suitable for any oven bottom bread and mixed bread and,
  • Their unsuitability for medium-sized bakeries.

This requirement gave birth in 1930 to the Swinging Tray Simplex Oven. Of brick construction, it was heated by serpentine tubes, the first two legs being of brick and oblong in shape, the other legs being of metal and round. Fired by either gas or oil, they were ultimately available in 3 ½, 5 or 6 sacks capacity.

“Simplex” Swinging Tray Travelling Oven

The first ovens were very troublesome and represented the first serious challenge to Baker Perkins’ knowledge of steam application in bread baking. After some re-design and rebuilding, the oven was well received by medium-sized bakeries and many dozens were built in all three sizes. It successfully handled all sorts of bread and would frequently be encountered working with four different types of bread in it at the same time.

Oven Fuels and Oven Burners

(NOTE: These comments are taken from Claude Dumbleton’s “The Oven Game”. They therefore refer to the situation that existed in the period prior to his retirement in 1956).

Mention has been made in the descriptions of various ovens of the fuels typically used and it is worth summarizing them here:

  • Hot Air Ovens used solid fuel with coke or coal, although some overseas installations used wood.
  • Steam Tube ovens used solid fuel, usually coke, or oil or gas – this latter fuel was very much on the expensive side. 45 and 200 sec. oils were popular and much heavier oils were used in the U.S.A., but they required heating installations for the pipelines and burners.
  • Cyclotherm Ovens used oil or gas, which was also more expensive with this system. Some installations used solid fuel with heat exchangers fed by automatic stokers.
  • Direct gas fired ovens used mostly Town’s gas, but in the U.S.A. oil gases of various kinds were also used.
  • Primus burners using petrol were sometimes used on Field Ovens.
  • Creosote Pitch, heated and liquefied, and Tar oils were used during WW2 in an emergency for firing Steam Tube and Cyclotherm Ovens.
  • Pulverized coal burned in oil burners was used on one installation of a steam tube oven, but it was very dirty and had to be removed.
  • Electricity was never very popular because of the cost, apart that is in some installations in South America.

Thermostatic Controls

These were used with varying success. Various arrangements were tried on steam tube ovens, but met with little success, mainly because of the slowness of heating up and cooling of tubes and furnaces. On Cyclotherm ovens - either oil or gas - thermostatic control proved more successful, mainly with high/low burners, that is, with always some basic heat in the oven. Saginaw used On/Off controls for some years and later went to high/low and then to modulating control.

There are still many Cyclotherm ovens with straight hand control, the controls invariably automatically adjusting the amount of air for combustion to the amount of fuel used. Werner & Pfleiderer used some thermostatic control but apparently favoured hand adjustments.

Lighting of Burners

Hand torches, mostly gas, were generally used on steam tube ovens. Some oil-fired installations also used torches. Earlier efforts took the form of a piece of lighted waste on the end of a metal poker.

For Cyclotherm ovens, both oil and gas torches and gas pilots have been used. Later installations have employed electric ignition, but even with this gas pilots were used in addition for safety reasons.

The Americans used electric ignition almost exclusively.

Safety Devices

Most Cyclotherm ovens are now equipped with safety devices in the form of Flame Eyes or Flame Rods which cut off fuel supplies in case of flame failure or burner or pilot. Various simple devices have been employed in the past, but actually, no safety devices have proved one hundred per cent effective against explosions. American instruments have been found more reliable than English.

Gas Equipment for Biscuit Ovens

When the Direct Gas Fired Travelling Chain Oven was first conceived in 1912, – the original thoughts were converted into practice in the UK by the Solas Gas Engineering Co. at Macfarlane Lang’s bakery in Fulham. Macfarlane approached Keith & Blackman (later Keith Blackman) to produce competitive equipment, who in turn got in touch with J. Baker & Sons to design and build an oven for Keith & Blackman’s gas equipment. This was the start of a very prosperous run of oven design and collaboration with Keith & Blackman, engineered by H. Kirman of Joseph Baker & Sons. All these chain conveyor ovens had adjustable burners for lateral heat.

(Harry Blackman joined with James Keith to form the ventilation company of Keith Blackman sometime around the end of the 1800s. They majored in the design and manufacture of industrial fans. The company moved in 1938 to a ten and a half acre site in Tottenham where they employed some 750 people. By 1983, Keith Blackman were part of the giant engineering conglomerate, GEC (General Electric Company - not to be confused with GE of the USA), who merged the company with Woods of Colchester Ltd., another fan manufacturer they owned).

Gas equipment (until well into the middle of the twentieth century always supplied for Baker Perkins ovens by Keith Blackman) was varied. Firstly came high-pressure gas fed from a Keith Blackman Rotary Compressor. Air was sucked in at a venture at each burner with adjustment to give the right mixture, about five to six times the amount of gas to air being required. Burners were of the corrugated steel strip construction (KB’s patent). This form of equipment was later converted to the clean air equipment (still high pressure). In which the air for combustion was fed from a pressurised compartment covering the injectors, the air being filtered.

A second form of equipment was the pre-mix (developed by G. Keith). In this, gas and air were mixed at one central injector and fed to the burners as an explosive mixture. Obviously, safeguards had to be provided and flame checks were fitted at each burner so that in the event of blowbacks the whole of the pipeline would not be wrecked.

A variation of the pre-mix was the unit pre-mix used throughout U.S.A. In this, a small number of burners, about a dozen, were run off one pre-mix injector. This equipment was particularly suitable for natural gases. Another variation of the gas equipment was the Keith Blackman 2-pipe system, which fed gas and air in separate pipes to each burner, the mixing being done by small valves at each burner.

High capacity radiant heat burners were tried from time to time and this type of burner was resurrected in the 1950s. Surface combustion burners were tried from time to time, not very successfully, although one installation worked quite well in Canada.

The main thoughts underlying these gas equipment developments were (a) proper control of air to gas in order to avoid bad combustion, with consequent high consumption, and (b) control and filtering of air to avoid clogging of burners and reduce maintenance and cleaning.

In 1935, George Keith had the idea of producing nozzle burners with a consumption of 52 c/feet per burner and almost from that date, the nozzle burner, with its necessary smaller number of punchings on oven wall and lighting points, became standard.

Clean Air Direct Gas System

When band oven started, the old Keith venturi injector burner was in vogue and it was actually on this type of oven that the clean air system referred to on unit chain ovens, started. The first installation was on an 84ft oven at Ashley Vale Biscuit Co., Bristol. The Americans followed their own system, mainly unit pre-mix.

Because of the need to use fuel oil the Americans rapidly developed the diathermatic heating of band ovens and Baker Perkins Ltd followed quickly. The first installation was in 1938 and initial efforts took the form of box radiators. Cyclotherm biscuit ovens have been both gas and oil fired and it is possible to argue that they would not have been produced at all had it not been for the possibility of heating by oil.

Electric Heating of Band Ovens

Other types of heating have been adopted from time to time. Baker Perkins pioneered electric heating and built its first electrically heated band oven at De Artiach, Bilbao. The electric heaters took the form of two spiral wires of different resistance wound on a grooved spiral ceramic core, and the whole inserted into a steel tube. These heaters were arranged in banks of nine and in conjunction with tumbler switches a series of nine different heats could be obtained in each zone. This ingenious arrangement of heaters and switches was conceived by G. Ralph Baker and designed by A. Newby. It was been criticised from time to time, but has clearly stood the test of time and many dozens of hand ovens with this form of electric heating have been installed, both at home and abroad, with outstanding success

The Move from Willesden and a Clash of Cultures

(See also Willesden to Peterborough)

By 1933, the closure of the Willesden factory was inevitable and much of the manufacturing equipment and most of the employees moved to Peterborough. The move signalled something of a battle between opposing design philosophies but one valuable result was the development of the bread oven. As Augustus Muir puts it:

“The success of the Peterborough works had largely been due to the steam-tube oven; and Ihlee and his colleagues, including John Pointon, clung to the opinion that steam heating could never be bettered. Willesden men, on the other hand, had worked on biscuit machinery and had been accustomed to ovens heated by methods other than steam. They were quickly convinced that steam was not necessarily the ‘be all and end all’ in the baking of bread. When Eugene Engels, a Russian engineer employed at Saginaw developed the diathermic system and, almost at the same time, a similar method was being perfected at Cannstatt in the ‘Cyclotherm’ oven, It was the Willesden men rather than those of Peterborough who urged that bread should be baked in ovens by this regenerative hot air system, whereby air was heated by gas or oil-fired burners and conveyed through ducts above and below the travelling hearth. It had been proved that the ‘Cyclotherm’ method was cheaper and quicker in baking bread than the traditional steam tube; and after the new ovens had been modified for various purposes, there was an increasing demand for them.

Augustus Muir is referring to 1938 when considerable interest was being taken in the American diathermic (designed at the Baker Perkins Saginaw, Michigan factory, see The History of Saginaw) and the German Cyclotherm baking systems, both featured regenerative hot air systems in which air was heated by gas or oil-fired burners and conveyed through ducts above and below the oven band - the former based on small volume, high speed circulation of the hot baking gases, the latter on large volume low speed circulation.

Sketch of German Cyclotherm Oven with box radiators
Sketch of American Cyclotherm system

After seeing both designs, Baker Perkins was advised to build one of each type. A small number of each type was sold - with varying success – and Baker Perkins concentrated on the American (diathermic) design that it called (perhaps somewhat perversely) the Cyclotherm, believing that the German box radiators did not provide sufficient radiating surface.

At the same time as the Cyclotherm system was being developed for travelling plate ovens, thought was being given to applying this system to swinging tray ovens with the “Simplex” circuit. Although authority was given for a 5-sack oven to be installed in the Experimental Bakery at Westwood Works, (see also The Experimental Department), after many weary months of trails, the oven failed to produce satisfactory tin bread. However, L.H. King arranged for the oven to be installed in the Price & Co bakery in Liverpool where it proved an almost immediate success with several other installations being made in rapid succession.

Travelling Tray Oven linked to a Final Prover

‘Cyclotherm’ ended the reign of the steam tube and led to the development of the ‘Uniflow’ oven – simple in construction, that baked the types of bread the public wanted. Its popularity in Britain led to success in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

The “Uniflow” Oven

The need in these years for a simple mechanical oven giving as near as possible the best steaming conditions, better steam control than the plate oven, to eliminate the complicated circuit of the “Simplex” oven, to be of all-metal construction and to embody the Cyclotherm system, led to the birth of the “Uniflow” oven. This had swinging trays 7’-4” x 9”, was mainly used for tin bread and had a contra-flow tube. It could be used for oven bottom bread but, under these circumstances, its output was considerably reduced. “Uniflows” were built in 3 ½, 6 and 9-sack capacities and as late as 1956, a 12-sack oven was under consideration.

More than 500 “Uniflows” were produced in various parts of the world, most oil-fired, although many used gas and many had thermostatic control

Direct Gas Fired Travelling Oven

In the early 1920s, a small number of direct gas fired travelling plate ovens had been built – 60ft x 6ft flat soles, brick built, for tin bread. These were not entirely successful, mainly because of the high cost of fuel but also the inability to obtain the correct application of steam. In addition, Keith Blackman, who always made the gas firing equipment, were unable to produce a strip burner that would stay alight in a heavily steam loaded atmosphere.

In 1930, the concept was resurrected, mainly in connection with Vienna roll baking. The ovens were 45ft x 9ft light plate, 1/8” thick and of brick construction. Two ovens for Lyons were highly successful but the design died out largely due to the large outputs of these ovens.

One important development of the DGF plate oven was sponsored by Charles Taroni of J. Baker & Sons, who advocated the design and building of 100ft x 9’-8” ovens for Scotch batch bread. Brick built with level soles, the ovens had a Keith Blackman 2-pipe direct gas fired system – Keith’s having produced by this time a sunken stainless steel strip burner that would burn in steam. Four of these huge ovens were installed in Scotland and worked for very many years.

Two-Deck Rod Chain Travelling Confectionery Oven

Two-Deck Rod Chain Confectionery Oven

Mechanisation of confectionery developed very rapidly in the 1930s and J.Lyons and Co. standardized for a number of years on 50ft x 4-pan Ovens with rod chains in two decks. These ovens were direct gas fired by the Keith Blackman clean air system and were to be found in Cadby Hall producing jam tarts, pies, Bath buns, Victoria sponges and many other types of confectionery

The Swiss Roll Plant

One of the most important, (and unexpected) outcomes from the development of automatic biscuit plant (see – History of Baker Perkins in the Biscuit Business) was the Swiss Roll plant. The idea was originally conceived by Kearley & Tonge, Bethnal Green but put into practical effect by Charles Taroni of Joseph Baker & Sons, who realised the possibility of making swiss rolls using a continuous steel band oven. Augustus Muir recounts:

“He saw how a conveyor at one end of the oven could take the baked dough to the floor beneath in such a way that the ‘pale’ side was uppermost, and the jam or cream could then be mechanically spread on it. The baked dough could then be cut off, at the requisite length, without any interruption in the process”.

Originally, the batter was to be deposited on to a stream of rice paper but this did not prove practical and was superseded by depositing onto a greased steel band. The first swiss roll plants had either one or two steel bands, 400mm or 450mm wide. Later plants had a single 800mm wide steel band onto which up to 3 lines of batter were deposited.

Twin Steel Band Swiss Roll Oven Delivery End
Swiss Roll Jam and Cream Spreaders

The new concept meant a very great saving in labour costs compared with the old method of cooking in pans but still required a number of dextrous female hands to roll up each individual swiss roll and place it on another conveyor for packaging. There were many attempts over the years to mechanise this last process and, in the early 1960’s, the problem was put to the ‘boffins’ at the newly acquired Baker Perkins Developments Ltd at Twyford. However, as is described in the History of Baker Perkins Developments Ltd, this problem proved intractable even to these fertile minds.

Soon, all the British manufacturers of swiss rolls were installing the new plant in each of their factories and orders were received from South Africa, Australia, America - and even Russia. Orders were still being obtained for this equipment into the 1980s.

Baker Perkins’ main competitor – T & T Vicars – copied the design, but in a unique fashion, producing a single floor plant – which Baker Perkins copied in turn.

INSERT – Photos and diagrams of both configurations of plant.

WORLD WAR TWO

In 1941, Calcium was added to flour in the UK to prevent rickets that had been detected as common in women joining the Land Army. A year later, the Federation of Bakers was formed to assist in organising the wartime production and distribution of bread. The 'National Loaf', roughly equivalent to today's brown bread, was introduced due to shortage of shipping space for white flour. The National Loaf was not abolished until 1956, when laws were introduced whereby all flour other than wholemeal had to be fortified with minimum amounts of calcium, iron, Vitamin B1 (thiamine) and nicotinic acid.

The Baker Perkins factories in England and America were converted to war work. (See Westwood Works in WW2 and History of Saginaw). Mobile Bakeries manufactured at Westwood were used, not only to feed the Troops, but helped to feed the civilian population where commercial bakeries had been put out of action by enemy bombing. Operating in two shifts of eight hours each, the large units were capable of baking the daily bread ration for a full division of 16,000 men. It is of interest that the mobile bakery received the honour of a place in the Victory Parade in London at the end of the War.

It is interesting to note that Baker Perkins Mobile Bakeries were deployed from 1951 to 1992 to local depots by the Ministry of Agriculture for mass feeding in the event of nuclear war or other civil emergency. (Source - The British Museum)
For a fascinating insight into baking bread for the Army, both during and after the War, please see this page on the Felbridge & District History Group website.

POST-WW2 DEVELOPMENTS

(For a history of the business environment within which these developments took place see History of Baker Perkins Ltd)

With the end of the War, came a huge backlog of orders to both add to the industry’s capacity and to replace the equipment damaged during the hostilities. The need for extra capacity to cope with the back-log of orders – the key problem being that of ensuring that the work supplied by sub-contractors would be up to the Baker Perkins standard – was met by the directors deciding to open a factory that would be complementary to Westwood Works in Hebburn-on-Tyne, close to Newcastle. In early 1946, Bedewell Works, a site having the advantages of a self-contained location and a further 11 acres available for expansion, was acquired on rent. For the full story see History of Bedewell and Building for the Future. The Bedewell factory was to become the key UK manufacturing centre for baking ovens.

With the cessation of hostilities, Government price controls were lifted, orders for equipment continued to pour in and sales reached record levels. Labour was scarce and expensive and the main demand from customers in the aftermath of the War was for automation.

UK Post-War Bakery Machinery

Controlled Tray Confectionery Oven
High-Speed Tilting Bowl Dough Mixer – A 450/500lbs capacity machine derived from the Saginaw High-Speed Mixer shown earlier. The beaters were of double roller type with a through centre steel shaft.
Conical Final Moulder
Heavy Duty Drum Moulder – Used to sheet, curl and mould dough pieces on their discharge from the first prover
“Integra” Combined Divider Moulder – For roll production, four divided pieces at a time were deposited into the first set of gyratory moulding cups, moving successively to the 2nd, 3rd and 4th row of cups as succeeding pieces were ejected from the divider. The dough pieces were discharged in a regular shape with practically no closing seam.

Development of the Bread Oven

Claude Dumbleton’s development of the ‘Uniflow’ oven had been of the greatest importance to the company and now, the first large ‘Turboradiant’ indirect oil-fired oven was installed under his direction. The bread tins were carried through the oven on grids instead of plates but he major innovation was in the application of high-speed convection of hot air imposed upon radiant heat. The result was that the baling time could be reduced by fully a quarter. Later work showed that the ‘Turboradiant’ oven could be made even more efficient and also produced at a lower cost.

Delivery end of a 10-sack Mk2 Turboradiant oven at Fletcher’s Bakery, Sheffield in 1965

MkIII gas fired Turboradiant oven was introduced in 1969.

Automation and the Automatic Bread Plant

With Baker Perkins position in the bakery equipment world, they were expected to take the lead in this development and indeed, they deliberately concentrated on the opportunity. Although no plants were built in the UK on the scale of those produced in America, the pressures on the bakers in both countries were the same – rising costs, a shortage of skilled labour, and a growing demand to enhance hygiene by reducing the human handling of foodstuffs.

This was a time to organise and invest for greater technical mastery of materials and bread-making process know-how. A new experimental Department was built at Westwood Works, under G.D. Wilson. Incorporating a miniature bakery and oven burner testing apparatus, the building was completed in 1950 (See The Experimental Department). At the same time, Claude Dumbleton, Board of Management member in charge of design and development, was presiding over a move to harness the combined talents of the Peterborough designers, the result of which was the setting up of “The Designs Committee. (See Export or Die).

The result of all this effort, both in the UK and at Saginaw, were completely automated bread plants which took in flour – and other ingredients – at the front end and delivered sliced, wrapped bread into the warehouse, untouched by human hand. An ingenious arrangement of conveyors, pushers, transfer units and clever unit processes used the latest electronics and pneumatics technology to control the passage of straps of loaf tins around the plant.

INSERT – Illustration of a complete bread plant – diagram? Plus some relevant photos of both US and UK plants

The clamour for automation coupled with the boom in demand for bakery plant led other American firms to enter into competition with Baker Perkins Inc in the manufacture of large continuous plants – only to find that they had underestimated the expertise needed in the successful production of such plants. So long as the boom lasted, there was enough work for all – both the newcomers and the established manufacturers. When the pent-up demand was satisfied, the result was inevitable.

A Shake-up in the American Bakery Machinery Industry

The early 1950s was a significant time for the Group’s American bakery machinery operation. 1950 had seen the beginning of a progressive decline in the American baking industry and this heralded the beginning of difficulties for some machinery producers, - to the benefit of Baker Perkins Inc. The American Machine and Foundry Co. ceased manufacture of bakery equipment and, a few years later, The Petersen Oven Company, a successful manufacturer of unit ovens for nearly three-quarters of a century, (see History of The Petersen Oven Company), found themselves in difficulties after attempting to launch themselves into the design and manufacture of complete automatic bakery plant. By 1958, financial difficulties forced a merger with Baker Perkins.

The decision was taken in 1955 to sell Baker Perkins’ interest in the National Bread Wrapping Company – the association had not been without its problems – to their co-owner The Package Machinery Company, in return for an allocation of stock of the Package company, a share in the Forgrove Royalties, and an agreement that they could continue to sell the machines to the bakery industry. (See also History of Baker Perkins in the Packaging Business). In the same year, significant changes in the structure of the American baking industry compelled the directors to liquidate the Century Machine Company. The industry had split into two main types of business – small retail bakeries seeing goods on the premises and large-volume wholesale bakeries with an output of up to 200 loaves a minute from each line of plant. Squeezed between these extremes was a diminishing requirement for the medium-sizes machinery in which Century had specialised.

In 1956, the Read Standard Corporation, a major competitor to Baker Perkins Inc, was acquired by Capitol Products Corporation and the new owners announced their intention to extend their production of bakery equipment. Read Standard’s president, E. Archer Turner, was persuaded by P.B. Harley to join Baker Perkins Inc as executive vice-president and, in 1963, the Read Standard Division of Capitol Products Corporation was liquidated, Baker Perkins taking over its stock and service obligations.

Bakery Equipment in South Africa

Baker Perkins had sold equipment into South Africa prior to WW2 through an agent, Bradley & Bowman Ltd. of Johannesburg. In 1946, a controlling interest was taken in the company and its name changed, in January 1947 to Baker Perkins & Bowman (Proprietary) Ltd. South Africa was seen as a significant market for bakery machinery but political problems, sanctions and governmental restrictions of imports reduced trading and profits considerably.

During the 1970's, the bread industry went through a boom period but the industry was very much controlled. The processing of wheat in any shape or form was not allowed without a licence from the Wheat Industries Control Board.
Despite having a pool of engineers there had been little local manufacture in South Africa and in 1980, the Southern sub-group was formed to combine the Australasian sub-group and Baker Perkins South Africa (Pty) Ltd. Local manufacture was given greater prominence and the sale of bakery plant centred round the Australian 440 tray oven with the larger plants being imported, the largest plant installed being capable of producing 5000 loaves per hour. By this time, Werner and Pfleiderer were importing tunnel oven plants at highly competitive prices and gaining a foothold in the industry. Baker Perkins unit machines were still highly regarded and the sales of Accurist Dividers in South Africa alone more than matched the combined sales to the rest of the world, including the U.K.

The low point for Baker Perkins South Africa came in 1983 when the baking industry was at a low ebb and plant orders were a rarity. Significant difficulties were experienced. The story of this period will be found in – History of Baker Perkins South Africa Pty.

Previously, Baker Perkins had shown little interest in the South African shop bakery market but in 1984, an attempt was made to get into this growing sector and a new company, Norbake, was floated. This was not a success, the story of this venture being told in Retail Bakery In South Africa below, and in History of Norbake (Pty) Ltd, South Africa.

The End of an Era

The early 1950s saw a major change in the Drawing Office at Peterborough. Johnny Pointon, the genius behind the development of the company’s bakery machinery business (see The Pointons), had retired in 1953 and the passing of the old regime on the technical side of the food machinery business was finally signalled at the end of 1956 with the retirement from active duty of Claude Dumbleton, technical director. This was followed a year later by G.D. (George) Wilson, drawing office manager, moving to the Experimental Department. Both were ex-Willesden people, who had held these positions since 1945. The full story can be see in The History of Baker Perkins Ltd – The End of an Era.

Bakery Machinery identified as a Key Opportunity

After the post-war order back-log had been cleared and work at Westwood returned to "normal" – albeit in a very changed world, A.I. Baker had stated some years before – "Experience has proved that a business cannot stand still; it either goes forwards or backwards. When we cease to expand, we begin to go downhill". It was time for big decisions to be made and In November 1954 a committee was formed – the Future Development Committee – with the remit to make a definite choice between retrenchment and expansion. Six months of discussion and argument followed.

Consideration was given to all of the industries served by the company and to many outside its accepted range. When the report of the committee was placed before the directors, at the top of the list was – bread-making plant.
(See also Planning for Growth).

  • Bulk Materials Handling

One of the acquisitions suggested by the Future Development Committee was of William Douglas & Sons Ltd, Putney (see History of Douglas Rownson) who had been associated with Baker Perkins for some time both technically and commercially prior to the acquisition in 1959. Many Baker Perkins bread plants incorporated Douglas equipment for the automatic handling in bulk of fats and liquid ingredients that were transported to the bakery in temperature-controlled tankers and stored in jacketed storage vessels were transferred by metering pumps directly to the dough mixers.

INSERT ILLUSTRATIONS OF A DOUGLAS LIQUIDS HANDLING PLANT

The late 1950s/early 1960s had seen Baker Perkins developing a competence in the bulk storage and pneumatic handling of ‘solid’ ingredients – particularly flour and sugar. These could now be delivered to the biscuit factory by road tanker, discharged in to huge silos and then pneumatically conveyed via sifters and weighing devices to the dough mixers with no mess, dust or human intervention save the turning of a switch on a recipe panel.

INSERT ILLUSTRATIONS OF A BULK SOLIDS HANDLING PLANT

The Douglas liquid handling technology, coupled with the growing in-house solid ingredients handling expertise gave the Division a total “soup to nuts” capability in the supply of biscuit plant, making the electronic management of the whole plant a real possibility.

THE SIXTIES - A DECADE OF CHANGE

Ever-increasing efficiency of production and distribution systems, as well as the development of the supermarket, began the shift away from bread produced by small master bakers and the emergence of the large wholesale companies.

This reflected the changing nature of British society. Women were going out to work in substantial numbers for the first time, there was a substantial uplift in post war affluence, and it was a decade of technological advancement – sliced and wrapped bread fitted neatly into this cultural shift by providing above all convenience.

The Holding Company

On 1st January 1963, the parent company changed its name to Baker Perkins Holdings Ltd and ceased to be involved in any trading or manufacturing activities. A new subsidiary company was formed, taking over the name Baker Perkins Ltd., to operate the Westwood and Bedewell factories and to take over the selling activities of the previous parent company. Although not at first directly impinging on the day-to-day operation of the bakery machinery business, the change was to have a profound effect a few years later.

Divisionalisation

The Bakery Division of Baker Perkins Ltd was created in December 1966. P. (Pat) Hoyle was appointed divisional manager with A.L. (Tony) Canham as sales manager.

American Developments in the 1960s

The beginning of the sixties, so far as sales of bakery equipment from Saginaw was concerned, had been depressing. However, their Design and Development department had been working with notable success and new equipment was being introduced against the prospect of an upturn in the market. The ‘Templex’ cooler, a completely new concept had – “a ‘harmonic’ motion that actuated all of the mechanical operations”. The automation wheel also came full circle with the development of the Baker Perkins Automatic Product Handling System that Saginaw launched in 1965, which made the troublesome bottleneck at the discharge end of the wrapping machinery a thing of the past. The system, said to be one of the most highly automated in the USA, was capable of handling 14.400 pounds of white bread, 9,000 pounds of variety bread and 90,000 rolls an hour.

(INSERT – Picture from GN16 – Sept. 1966)

1963 saw exports of bakery machinery from Saginaw rise sharply, after a rather barren period, with the first American automatic bread plant shipped to the Yamasaki Baking Company in Tokyo, Japan’s largest bakery. The Japanese government had encouraged the replacement of rice by wheat-flour in the Japanese diet because of the undoubted nutritional benefits. In the following year, Saginaw received the biggest single order that have ever been placed with it – a complete bakery for Arnold Bakers Inc, in Greenwich Connecticut – the largest plant of its kind in the world. The automatic bread ovens had a baking hearth 200 feet long and over 12 feet wide. The side of one of the tunnel ovens, built of white glazed brick with chrome-plated steel fittings, could be seen through a huge window by travellers on the New Haven Railroad and the New England Thruway running through Greenwich.

A £1.75M bakery was installed in 1965 for Cotton Holsum Bakery, Baton Rouge, capable of producing over 12,000 lbs of bread an hour. This was the fourth bakery supplied by Baker Perkins Inc. for this customer. In the same year, Canadian Baker Perkins secured the largest order in its history – to supply £900,000’s worth of equipment for a bakery in Montreal.

Five lines of Baker Perkins Inc. equipment worth £900,000 were installed in Horn and Hardart’s new kitchens, bakery and research and development centre in Philadelphia, USA in 1966. The plants were to produce - panned bread and rolls; hearth goods; sweet goods; cake; and pies.

At the end of the decade, Saginaw, impressed with the 16% per year growth of the sector, took a close look at the US frozen foods market. It was decided that the ovens that had been successfully baking cake and bread for American housewives so successfully for years, could also be used to cook products for the frozen foods industry. The result of the survey was an order for a tunnel oven to cook meat for a Chicago-based restaurant chain and two tunnel ovens to bake pizza. There was not a great deal of re-design work necessary – the inside of the oven had to be made from stainless steel and, to meet industry regulations requiring the inside of the oven to be washed down, a drainage arrangement had to be provided. Saginaw then turned their attention to developing and adapting plant for the cooling and freezing stages that followed.

Expansion in Australasia

See also History of Baker Perkins in Australasia

There had always been the problem and nuisance of putting lids on pans for the production of lidded bread and Thermo Radiant produced automatic lidding on its tray ovens. Each tray was fitted with a lid covering the whole of the tray with a mechanism that allowed the lid to be lowered onto the pans on the tray for lidded bread, or to drop the lids to the bottom of the tray to allow baking of unlidded bread on top of the lids.

Baker Perkins New Zealand Ltd then designed a mechanism by which the lids could be lowered onto the pan for lidded bread, or held up at sufficient height to clear the top of unlidded loaves. Most tray ovens in Australia were supplied with one or other of these types of lids.

Bakers in Australia and New Zealand require a highly glazed loaf or bread rolls. E.W. Hullett, when Director of the Wheat Research Institute in New Zealand, carried out many experiments on steam in ovens and concluded that it was unnecessary to finish the baking of a loaf in a dry atmosphere as had been accepted theory and practice. This made possible the construction of an oven that held all of the steam produced from the loaves being baked. After a certain number of loaves had been baked, the oven chamber became filled with steam allowing the following loaves to be highly glazed without steam injection form a boiler.

Australia also modified the design of a high speed mixer to suit local manufacture and investigated the practicability of a single-speed machine instead of the standard two-speed machine. It was seen that ingredient incorporation was satisfactory very high speeds of 200 rpm or more, suggesting that it was unnecessary to incorporate at 37 rpm and then mix at 75 rpm. A single speed of 75 rpm gave satisfactory results with a saving in cycle time and machine cost.

The Uniflow oven, designed at Peterborough, was very popular among the larger bakers in Australasia in the post-war period.The ovens were made in Australia and were jigged so that shop erection was not necessary, complete assembly being carried out on site. Baker Perkins Pty was later faced with moving Uniflow ovens either within a bakery or to a new site miles away. It was decided that the ideal way was to move the oven in one piece, this being achieved by strengthening the base to make it possible.

The Uniflow was expensive when compared with ovens later produced by competitors and efforts were made to reduce costs by taking the components of a Uniflow and surrounding them with a simpler, cheaper carcase designed for handling in one piece for a 50-tray oven - two pieces for a 70-tray oven. This became known as the Westwood Oven.

1966 brought Baker Perkins Pty the majority share of a Colombo Plan financed order to supply equipment for six bakeries to be installed in India. This contract was seen as providing a significant boost to Baker Perkins Pty’s prestige and credibility in Southeast Asia.

The Westwood oven mentioned above was still considered to be too expensive and a new oven, based on E.W. Hullett's self-steaming principle. . The Simplex Oven, completed in 1962, was competitive in price and very successful in performance. A 20-tray Simplex-type extension was then designed to be added to existing Uniflow ovens, increasing its size at not too great a cost.

1966 saw the Australian company adopting an innovative approach to oven installation. The largest tray oven built to date – a prototype 80-tray Simplex oven, was tested in the factory before delivery and then split into two halves. To obviate removing the trays and chains, the chains were tack-welded to the oven casing at a point where they could be broken, so that when the two sections were married together on site, it was only necessary to re-connect the chains and knock off the tack weld. The first half of the oven was delivered to the customer’s factory on a Friday afternoon and the completed oven, together with its conveyors, went into full production on the Sunday night.

The group's 1967 Annual Report indicated that the share capital of Baker Perkins Pty. Ltd. Australia was increased by a scrip issue, providing a sound base for its future expansion in Australia. It also confirmed the group's 40% stake in Gordon Brothers Pty. Ltd.

Profit and turnover growth continued through the late 60's and, in 1969, Baker Perkins Pty. Ltd purchased the business of its main competitor in Australia, Thermo Radiant Ovens Pty. for £470,000. Thermo Radiant employed 120 in Springvale, Victoria and manufactured bread-making equipment that was to be made available alongside Baker Perkins' products. Also, in 1969, the remaining 60% of Gordon Brothers share capital was acquired. With this growth of the group's assets in Australasia, John Peake was appointed as managing director in the same year.

Don Jones, who was general manager of Thermo Radiant when it was acquired in 1969, was appointed managing director of Baker Perkins Pty. Ltd. in 1977. He joined the board of Baker Perkins Holdings in 1982.

Developments in the United Kingdom in the 1960s

By the mid-1950s, the post-war boom in Bakery Equipment had begun to slacken and around 1960, a reduction in the per capita consumption of bread in the UK led to some concentration in the market and the emergence of a number of large bakery chains. A similar concentration of UK biscuit manufacturers had begun in the 1950s - see - History of Baker Perkins in the Biscuit Business. By the late 1960s, these newly expanded bakeries began to consolidate their manufacturing operations, creating something of a dilemma for Baker Perkins. While the change to larger, albeit fewer baking plants tended to favour Baker Perkins, the basis on which baking equipment was being purchased was also changing in ways not necessarily favourable to the company.

In a move to increase profits, the larger UK bakeries began to question the need for premium equipment with foolproof features in view of their increased in-house ability to maintain equipment. They also exhibited a greater willingness than had small bakeries to buy individual components of a bakery plant from more than one supplier.

A second t